I'm taking a year off from professional photography. I've sold all my Canon equipment and am using a Panasonic Lumix G9 with the superb Leica 200-800mm telephoto lens and 28-84mm lems. This new equipment has the very important virtue of being light enough for hikes and walks whereas Canon and Nikon full frame dgiital DSLR's are too heavy for regular travel. I will however entertain the superb Nikon Z mirrorless camera and 500mm F5.6 lens next year.

Mirrorless cameras may overtake digital DSLR cameras and lens simply due to smaller size, less shutter noise and reduced weight well still maintaining the same image quality.

I took my Lumix gear out for a test run yesterday and to my delight captured my first Ipswich Sparrow of the year despite struggling with the camera settings of my new gear.

Duncan Reef Mansion

Duncan Reef Mansion 2 Duncan Reef Mansion 3

Eastern Head Duncan Reef Headlands  Eastern Head 1 Eastern Head 2

Ipswich Sparrow

I found out to my dismay that the centre spot focus on the Lumix likes to wander and image quality suffers badly at 800ISO, but I will learn.  Ipswich Sparrow 1 Ipswich Sparrow 2 Ipswich Sparrow 3 Ipswich Sparrow 4 Ipswich Sparrow 5 Ipswich Sparrow 6 Ipswich Sparrow 7